


loves me not

by jeannedarc



Category: VIXX
Genre: Gore, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 11:45:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8205277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeannedarc/pseuds/jeannedarc
Summary: He still pines after Jaehwan, night after night.





	

**Author's Note:**

> happy (very very early) halloween. for riley, as ever.

( i. )

Wonshik and Jaehwan are in Wonshik’s university studio, pretending to work on Wonshik’s assignment, due in just a couple days. Pretending because in reality, Jaehwan is feigning being unable to sing for the sake of making silly noises into the mic and distorting them using Wonshik’s sound software. He quacks, he moos, he barks, and each sound he distorts until it’s barely recognisable, until they’re both on the floor rolling with laughter. Jaehwan’s hair, getting long and due for its bi-annual trim, hangs over his eyes, and his smile is the brightest smile on the planet as far as Wonshik is concerned.

He catches himself staring into the cherrywood colour of Jaehwan’s eyes, the way he always does when his friend is around.

“You’re so cute, hyung,” murmurs Wonshik, trying his best not to pull the both of them into a tight embrace, their bed the floor, their starlit night the dim fluorescent of the studio ceiling.

It’s a phrase he finds himself uttering more often than not, mostly in Jaehwan’s presence, usually when they’re goofing around between classes, taking dumb selcas or making dumber jokes. Jaehwan’s eyes sparkle with every crow of laughter, and every time Wonshik feels that familiar heavy thud in his chest, rattling his ribs, shaking his soul.

Jaehwan, seeming to realise the depth of the situation, sits up and brushes his fringe from his forehead, apologising softly, and it breaks Wonshik’s heart, knowing the sincerity of that apology.

A cough rattles inside his ribs instead of the love he’d felt just a few moments prior. When he drops his hand from his mouth, the fit passing as quickly as it had come, there’s decaying brown leaves resting in his palm, the edges coloured scarlet with blood. He crumples them in his fingers, and suddenly that heavy feeling becomes a two-ton tree on his chest, threatening to crush him beneath all the weight of his feelings, unanswered, unrequited.

( ii. )

He’s confessed twice: once in the dark of the night, tongue thick with drink, head heavy, heart hollow, the pair of them snuggled up on Jaehwan’s couch with Wonshik’s head in Jaehwan’s lap and Jaehwan’s fingers in Wonshik’s hair. He finds himself pouring out feelings he didn’t know he could express in words he wasn’t entirely sure he understood, and the world spun out beneath him, threatening to cast him off its surface if he didn’t get these things out.

Jaehwan had said nothing, just stayed there in the darkness, blunt nails gentle against Wonshik’s crown. They had fallen asleep this way, and in the morning spoke no more of drunken confessions or intentions or love.

The second time was in the middle of the day, a letter involved, the kind that one spends hours if not days on, scrolled in his neatest hand and handed off with a shy bow. He waited to see Jaehwan’s reaction, which had been a mistake; this was months after the last time, and Wonshik was hopeful that it had been forgotten over the passage of time.

It hadn’t.

Jaehwan wasn’t angry, of course, very rarely was when it came to Wonshik, but told the younger in his gentlest voice that he just didn’t feel the same, that he thought of Wonshik as a younger brother, a good friend, a confidant, but couldn’t imagine the stirrings of romantic love between them.

Wonshik’s heart, flying high with false confidence until Jaehwan turned and walked away, crashed to the bottom of his gut, pulled down and held taut by vines that snaked around it and gave it a good squeeze.

That night when he got home to his dorm, Hongbin, his best friend, his roommate, tried to cheer him up -- they watched movies, listened to music, made stupid jokes, and even held each other in the darkness, Hongbin muttering about what a tease Jaehwan was and how Wonshik was too good, too sweet for him. Wonshik only shook his head, unsure as to how he could defend Jaehwan at a time like this but also certain that it wasn’t right for Hongbin to act as if Jaehwan had led him on when he hadn’t done anything of the sort.

“You can’t be angry at someone for not feeling something,” he said, wisely at that, and Hongbin gave him that look of disbelief for which he’d always been famous.

“If you say so.” His voice also cast doubt, but Wonshik thought it best to ignore his misplaced rage.

That night, when Hongbin was asleep, Wonshik padded barefoot into the floor bathroom to wash his face, brush his teeth, feel some semblance of normalcy despite the depression that hovered over him, a rainstorm ready to flood out any positivity he could possibly feel, drown it entirely, root to stem to leaf. As he brushed his teeth, though, he had a coughing fit, and when he looked down into the sink, expecting to see toothpaste remnants and spittle, he saw the flower petals pooling around the drain.

White, with red around the edges. Carnations. The kind he’d bought for his mother once or twice before.

Throat dry and sore and scratchy, he scooped the petals from the sink and threw them in the trash. A dream, he supposed. A nightmare. He spoke of it to no one, not even Hongbin, especially not Jaehwan.

Once would have been enough, but of course, nothing was as bright as it could have been in Wonshik’s life, not without Jaehwan in it.

( iii. )

Sometimes Wonshik likes to play games with the flowers he coughs up in the night, likes to cradle them in his cupped palm and watch the way they shift, the way the shadows cast off the petals. He can’t believe something so beautiful has ripped its way from deep inside him, but then again, so had this love he feels for Jaehwan.

He coughs more often now than he had before -- six months after his confession, three months after Jaehwan had stopped coming to his studio, three weeks after Jaehwan had decided for the both of them that they probably shouldn’t be friends for the time being. “Until your heart settles,” Jaehwan had said with that smile of his that lied, said everything would be alright in the end.

Wonshik goes to class less, leaves the dorm less, doesn’t understand that the flowers blooming inside him need sunlight to grow so that they may consume him as he lives and (poorly) breathes. Hongbin takes care of him as best he can, but there’s only so much one person can do for another without physically doing it for them, so Wonshik goes days without getting out of bed, weeks without showering.

If he doesn’t water them, they won’t grow. Maybe he’ll be alright.

The flowers he coughs up now are a soft shade of purple, with deeper violet stripes running into the center, small, no bigger than the very center of his palm. He holds one in his hand in the dead of night, the only sounds in the dorm those of Hongbin’s soft snores in the bed across the room and the soft snap of damp petals, tinged with mucous and blood, ripping from the coloured center and dropping each one on his knee until the flower is bare.

( iv. )

Jaehwan hadn’t always been avoiding him, much to Wonshik’s great dismay. There was a time during which they had tried to continue on with their friendship as if it weren’t awkward, as if Wonshik had never once tried to say just how much he cared for and adored and worshipped Jaehwan’s laughs, his smiles, the way he drew on the backs of his hands during boring lectures or the copious amounts of emoji he texted when he remembered to text. They had tried.

Or, at least, Wonshik had. Looking back, he isn’t sure whether or not Jaehwan had spent time with him just out of politeness, while instead feeling as if he needed to escape Wonshik’s company as quickly as possible.

But every time they spent time together, just the two of them, no social or physical buffer between them, Wonshik found himself instinctively reaching out, trying to touch Jaehwan’s inked-over hands, or smile in that way that they had done before the incident, before the feelings had won him, before he had made everything between them terrible, irreparably broken.

It was the middle of winter, dead between the solstice and the thaw at the beginning of spring, and Wonshik had been so sure that, even though he was spending less and less time with Jaehwan the way they used to -- Friday movie night had gradually petered out until it was unofficially cancelled, and the same fate befell Tuesday night noraebang a number of weeks later -- and more and more time sequestered, either in his studio or in his room, he still found himself longing.

Flowers don’t grow in winter, he told himself each and every day.

But each and every day, he coughed harder and harder, throat practically exploding from pain, from effort, and came away handfuls of marigolds that couldn’t be explained out of being.

( v. )

“So what are you studying right now?”

The real reason Jaehwan doesn’t want to spend time with Wonshik anymore is that he’s got a new boyfriend. Hakyeon is tall and has dark skin and the blackest hair and an incredible slow smile. He takes one look at Wonshik and suddenly Wonshik feels as if he is naked, exposed, on display for both Hakyeon and Jaehwan to see, right there at the dinner table.

He hadn’t wanted to come. Hongbin had begged him not to, had been begging him not to do much of anything besides ‘see a damn doctor already’ -- Wonshik’s coughing fits were starting to keep the both of them up at night, and he’s running out of excuses as to why their wastebins are always full of bloody flowers.

When not occupied with thoughts of Jaehwan, his laugh, his hands, the way he is warm even on the coldest of days, this is what keeps Wonshik from sleeping. That, and the threat of death filling him from center all the way out to his frayed edges.

“Composition theory,” Wonshik mumbles as he snaps back to the present, not meeting Hakyeon’s all-knowing gaze, fingers wrapped tight around the dark glass bottle of beer he’d ordered himself not ten minutes ago. The bottle is almost empty, and the wrapper is disintegrating under his touch, fallible paper like to crumble under condensation and the weight of the world (is he made of paper, instead of flowers, he wonders).

“A musician.” Wonshik wants to hate Hakyeon, wants to despise him, to want to tear him limb from limb as slowly and painfully as possible, but he can’t. It’s not in his nature. He supposes that’s why his disease is an internal one, destroying him from the inside out. “I should’ve known. You seem like the sensitive artist type.”

Jaehwan laughs in that way that used to be reserved for Wonshik and Wonshik alone, and a wave of nausea sweeps over Wonshik, so strong that he must impolitely excuse himself. He doesn’t run to the bathroom, but rather outside, into the crisp air of an early April day, retching so hard he nearly knocks himself over. He clings tight to the lightpost outside the restaurant, his heaves soundtracked by the easy jazz that had been playing inside and continues to do so every time someone new enters the building.

The flowers that puddle at his feet now are a violent shade of orange -- lilies, with their stamens sticking out long, proud against the fluted petals, several of them coming off between his teeth and clinging to his lips.

He stoops, picks one up. It’s a ritual of his at this point, to count. At least he won’t be here long; lilies, while large, are a maximum of seven.

No matter how many times he pulls the petals from the stem, repeating that childhood phrase to himself, it always comes up the same.

Wonshik throws the useless flower petals into the pile, ignoring the wary looks he earns from passersby on the street, and goes back to possibly the most painful meal of his entire life.

( vi. )

Wonshik misses all his final exams, stays in bed the entire time, despite Hongbin’s growing but silent concern, his habit of watching over Wonshik as he sleeps, eats, does anything in the way of doing more than just existing, a limp body against a mattress, sweat and salt and flower petals. He doesn’t go to his summer classes, either, just sort of follows along with the flow of things, takes suggestion without wanting to, takes direction without thinking of the ramifications. If someone wanted him to do something illegal… well, he’d go along, but he wouldn’t like it.

He is still himself. He still wakes up at three in the morning with a tune in his head that cannot be replaced by any other sound until he at least writes it down. He still jokes with Hongbin, albeit weakly and at his own expense.

He still pines after Jaehwan, night after night.

The only things that have changed are his ability to move, and his ability to sleep.

Jaehwan and Hakyeon, very much in love very quickly, take a trip for their hundred days’ anniversary. Wonshik coughs non-stop -- though they don’t spend time together anymore, he still makes an effort to at least contact Jaehwan once a day, and Jaehwan, ever the kind one, makes sure to answer back, though with decidedly fewer emojis. He seems a shell of himself when they speak, as if Wonshik’s love for him has broken his heart, as well.

But when Hakyeon whisks Jaehwan away to the seaside for an extended weekend, there is radio silence. Wonshik can hear the static building in his ears.

That Friday night, Wonshik coughs up an unfamiliar flower, shaped like a daisy, deep magenta and yellow at the center, petals a soft violet, the tips a rosy gold. It is large enough that it fills up both his hands by itself. A million and one tiny petals, all ripped to shreds in his lap, and the end result is the same -- a mess all over his bed, his fingertips covered in blood and spit and heartbreak.

( vii. )

The summer makes him more and more ill. It must be the heat, the humidity, encouraging the flowers in his lungs to flourish. He has stopped coughing up blood and instead the flowers he spurts are covered in what appear to be small chunks of flesh, red, veiny, torn messily from his insides.

Hongbin has stopped asking Wonshik to see a doctor, has stopped saying anything at all, just silently brings Wonshik glasses of water when he coughs. Wonshik, enraged at how utterly foolish his best friend can be when it comes to how plant life works, slaps the glass from Hongbin’s hand one exceptionally hot Thursday evening. The glass spills its contents on the floor, shattering, crystal shards littered among the puddle of water gathering at the foot of Wonshik’s bed.

“I’m sorry,” he stammers, coughing quietly, a gentle fit considering how long he’s had an entire garden growing inside him. “I’m sorry, I just… I’m tired of them getting bigger.”

Hongbin still says nothing.

“You love him that much, why don’t you tell him?” he asks when their backs are to one another, when Hongbin is busy trying to clean up the mess Wonshik had made but is physically incapable of fixing on his own.

“I tried,” Wonshik mutters, carefully laying down, trying his best not to jostle the stones weighing him down and shift the flowers into a position that will make him cough again.

“I should let him know--”

“Don’t tell him anything, Lee Hongbin.” Wonshik coughs up another chunk of flesh and a goddamn bouquet of tiny pink camellias, blood spattering his entire hand. “I mean it.”

Hongbin, again, says nothing.

( viii. )

At the beginning of the next term, Wonshik is not signed up for classes. He barely leaves he and Hongbin’s dorm. He doesn’t change his clothes. He doesn’t remember the last time he showered. He almost forgets the sound of Jaehwan’s laughter, the way he looks in an oversized sweater, the way his hair falls over his forehead when it’s time for his bi-annual trim.

He does not forget that he loves Jaehwan; he only forgets why, having not seen him in a matter of several months.

He also does not sleep. Instead, the notion of sleep is replaced by a sharp, stabbing pain in his chest, branches poking between his ribcage. He does not breathe, either, is unable to lie down without nearly asphyxiating.

Hongbin brings him water as often as he can, has also not signed up for classes, is too busy trying to keep Wonshik and himself from getting kicked out of the dorm to think about himself. Wonshik tries not to ruminate on how his disease is getting in the way of someone else’s life, but the only other thought he can summon is that were this Jaehwan suffering from this illness, he would probably do the same that Hongbin is doing for him.

The pain grows worse daily, has been going on for two weeks. In times of great sleeplessness, Wonshik slides his hands under his grungy t-shirt, feels at the hollow spaces between each of his individual ribs, swears to everything he can feel tiny, tumour-like bulbs poking out in the deep canyons between his bones.

The pain grows.

It mounts on the first of September, a fire lit inside him, burning him from the inside out, tearing at his skin in slow, torturous centimeters until he feels each and every tendril, every petal, every useless flower threatening to snap him in two.

Hongbin stays by his side despite the screaming, despite the anger that bursts out of Wonshik’s wrecked throat, despite the flowers that he spits like poison from a bitter bundle of leaves. He keeps his hand wrapped around Wonshik’s.

And then...and then Wonshik can take no more. He flails, he cries, he tears off his shirt, looks down to see real shadows around real bulges in his chest, his skin mottled with bruises and squirming. Hongbin, too, cries, holds Wonshik’s hand tighter.

It is to no avail.

The invisible seams holding Wonshik together seem to burst, blood spurting from the cracks forming in him only to be replaced with skinny tree branches, the ends of which dangle with bulbous flowers yet to bloom. They grow at a pace that would astonish even then most avid botanist, expanding on and on until they fill the space, until Hongbin can no longer hold on, until he is knocked to the floor in a heap, curled in on himself, trying to shut his eyes to the horror that Wonshik’s body has just become.

Wonshik seizes, shaking uncontrollably, eyes rolling back in his head as the tree rooted deep in his chest grows, grows, grows. His mouth is a mess of blood and spit and guts, hanging open, trying to say something that cannot be spoken.

A long branch snakes its way out of his gaping mouth, and he stutters his last breath around the bark scraping his throat.

Hongbin bursts into tears, eyes winched shut, trying to close off his skin to the feeling of bulbs barely grazing against him, stroking him into complacency.

( nulla. )

A few weeks after the funeral (closed casket, and lucky to have that much; Wonshik’s parents can’t bear to look at their son, the chopped-off stumps of branches jutting from his mouth, in death, but it’s all Hongbin can think about), Hongbin is trying to go about his life as he had before. He enrolls late in school, but cannot focus on classes; he tries to spend time with friends (Sanghyuk has been a great comfort in the time of Wonshik’s death), but is unable to pay attention to simple conversations, just loses himself in drink instead.

He cannot look at gardens anymore, feels sick to his stomach whenever a single person so much as utters the idea of a flower.

He misses Wonshik more than anything, visits the fresh grave, brings little toys, drags along his guitar though he doesn’t feel much like playing.

Six weeks after Wonshik’s death, he coughs up his first dead leaf, the edges wet with blood.

**Author's Note:**

> dead leaves (i, nulla) - sadness  
> striped carnation (ii) - refusal  
> geranium (iii) - stupidity  
> marigold (iv) - grief  
> orange lily (v) - hatred  
> zinnia (mixed) (vi) - thinking of an absent friend  
> pink camellia (vii) - longing for you  
> arbutus flower (viii) - only you do i love
> 
> some flower sizes have been messed with for the sake of creativity and #aesthetic


End file.
